April 30, 2010

For those of you who have yet to come across 'The Spoof', it's an online repository of spoof articles, many of which look like they might be hysterically funny but turn out to be about as entertaining as reading back issues of Punch while waiting for the dentist to clean off the blood from the patient before you.

The article that caught my eye was titled 'IMF Shock "Only Nick Griffin's BNP Can Fix The British Economy!"'. With a title like that and with all we know about the BNP's financial corruption and mismanagement, it looked like essential reading, if only for the odd snigger after a busy day.

It started off fairly promisingly and looked like it might be a tad more subtle than the usual fare (like 'Scientist proves Kerry Katona doesn't actually exist' or 'Entire UK Population To Hide From Inspector Morse').

'Red faces all around when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund amazed journalists and commentators at a news conference this morning In Berlin by announcing that only the British National Party has put forward enough spending cuts to save an almost certain imminent collapse of the British economy within the next few months.

Mr Strauss Khan endorsed the plans of Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP to make the real and substantial spending cuts necessary to cut the deficit and get Britain on track to regain her financial independence from abroad.

"Only the British National party" he said "has proposed enough cuts to prevent Britain from going begging for a bailout to the International Monetary Fund within the next few months of an election win by any of the three wings of the British One Party State."'

Hmm. That phrase 'British One Party State' seems strangely familiar...

'Mr. Griffin commented "Unlike the other parties we will hide nothing, we will open all the books on the economy to the British people and the British media and trust them to understand, instead of hearing bits of the facts filtered through the the spin doctors in Number 11 or the main party's phoney think-tanks."'

Odd then that Griffin can't even open the books (or indeed, balance them) for the BNP itself, let alone the entire UK, but there you go. The article continues:

'Before releasing the full economic policy as listed below this report, Mr Strauss-Kahn gave some interesting highlights drawn up by his advisors:

The British National Party will begin by carefully explaining to the British people the truth about the economy and explain why a number of jobs, but less than those proposed by the other parties, will be lost for a while in public services. It will seek to get the British people on board in the spirit of the Blitz, when Britains [sic] united together to make sacrifices now to lay the foundations for a strong economy in the future for their children...'

The article then drifts into a complete (and long) reproduction of the finance section from the BNP's manifesto. Not funny at all, in fact.

So who would post something like this? Well, that at least is easily explained because the item was provided by a writer named 'sarasara'. Sarasara's homepage turns out to be a YouTube channel packed with pro-BNP and EDL videos and this little image at the top, which might help to explain things.

A search of other stories by Sarasara reveals that he, she or it has been a busy little bee on the BNP's behalf. A story named Secret MI5 Report Highlights Nick Griffin Threat is another puff-piece for the BNP, while others attack the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Unite Against Fascism, Billy Bragg and anyone even vaguely anti-fascist or linked in any way to anyone who has dared to question the BNP.

In fact it's pretty clear where Sarasara's political sympathies lie, particularly when, on reading an article about a fictitious invitation to Nick Griffin to visit Israel, the phrase 'fascist far-left anti-Israel UAF' is used. Sarasara's 'satires' are no such thing - they are pro-BNP propaganda, pure and simple.

The Spoof, naturally, has a set of fairly familiar terms and conditions for the writers who submit their stories, one of which is:

'You must not use the website for any of the following...to impersonate any third party or otherwise mislead as to the origin of your content'

I would suggest that providing political propaganda in the guise of satire is breaching that condition and I would ask that readers complain about this to the site's webmaster or the site's administrator. It's one thing to be attacked by humour - we do it all the time - but it's quite another to have an innocent site (if it is one) used to unwittingly spread the BNP's filth, lies and idiocies.

Annoyingly, Mark Lowton, the owner (or at least the site registrant) of The Spoof, lives here in Lancaster, so purely because I'm a nosey bastard, I searched to see what other domains he had an interest in and immediately one popped up, so to speak - www.bountifulpenis.com. Says it all really, doesn't it.

17 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"There is nothing that convinces a progressive more that they are in theright than finding that most people disagree with them.In other words, the more likely it is that 'progressives' are totally out oftouch with reality, the more they take this as conformation that they are infact right. So the more wrong they are, the more they tell themselves theyare not only right but that everyone who disagrees with them is either animbecile or a bigot or both." - Melanie Phillips, Thursday 29th April 2010

The fascist Griffin get an easy ride on BBC Radio 4 today (interview starts at 39 mins.) Every time I switch on the telly or radio or pick up a newspaper I see Griffin, why is he getting so much publicity?

1604: BNP leader Nick Griffin has admitted that a claim in his manifesto - that Britain is the most densely populated country in Europe - is wrong. "In fact, it's England and Wales. England and Wales are more overcrowded than anywhere in Europe except for Malta," he has told BBC Radio 4. "It's a fault in the manifesto. I blame the proof reader."

Glad to see someone else picked him up on that one. Like MigrationwatchUK he normally says England is the most crowded country which is almost factually correct. Using England and Wales he's still wrong - Netherlands has a greater pop. density.